Novel 1968 - Brionne (v5.0) Page 4

  The men automatically stepped aside, and then one of them, more belligerent than the other, suddenly seized Brionne’s arm. “Now, see here! What the—”

  “Take your hand off my arm.” Brionne spoke coolly, but the words were definite, and clearly spoken.

  “Look, I was talkin’ to that woman, an’—”

  “The lady of whom you speak does not know you. In your present condition she does not wish to know you. I will tell you once more, my friend, take your hand off my arm.”

  Anger flared in the drunken man’s eyes. “I’ll be damned if—”

  James Brionne, as those who knew him were aware, operated on an extremely short fuse. He brushed the arm away with his left hand, then crossed a solid right to the jaw. The punch was short, beautifully thrown, and it caught the correct angle of the man’s jaw. He hit the ground, falling forward, as a man does when knocked out by such a blow.

  Brionne looked across the fallen man, and said pleasantly, but with a cold look in his eyes, “Any comments? Would you like to make it two down?”

  Suddenly sober, the other man shook his head. “Not me, mister. But when he wakes up you’d better be wearin’ a gun.”

  “Tell him to forget it,” Brionne replied. “If he had put a hand on this lady I’d have seen him hung…and you also. I would resent it if anyone disturbed this lady in any way, now or later. Do you understand?”

  The man was flushing. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I reckon me an’ Pete made a mistake.” He gave Brionne a hard stare. “It ain’t because of you, mister. We really did make a mistake.”

  Taking Miranda by the elbow, Brionne guided her down the street. “That man…you didn’t kill him?” she asked. “He hasn’t moved.”

  “He’ll have a headache, that’s all.” He changed the subject. “Miss Loften, what are your plans? Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be all right, thank you. I—I just don’t know where to go tonight. I thought there’d be…well, the hotels aren’t like I expected.”

  He smiled. “They’re for men, ma’am, and rough men at that. We must find something else for you. Let’s go back and talk to Pat.”

  They crossed the street to avoid the group gathered around the man Brionne had hit, and went back to the livery stable.

  “Sure’n my own Mary will have a place for you, miss,” Pat said. “She’d not have you go elsewhere. She’s a fine Irish lady, she is, and she will welcome you.”

  Brionne studied Miranda. “Miss Loften, permit me to ask, why did you come here in the first place? You do not seem the type of girl likely to come to Promontory.”

  “Oh, it’s all right,” she answered. “I have inherited a mine—a silver mine.”

  Pat glanced at Brionne. “A silver mine?” he questioned. “Near Promontory?”

  “Well, actually it’s south of here. It’s a very rich mine. My uncle told us all about it when he came east the last time, just before my mother died.”

  “I know of no silver mine around here,” Pat said. “What might your uncle’s name have been?”

  “Brennan…they called him Rody, he told us.”

  Pat began to coil a rope, taking his time. Finally he spoke without looking up. “Miss, if you’d take an old man’s advice, you’d get right on the first train east.”

  “But that would be foolish,” she said. “Uncle Rody left me the mine. I don’t know much about such things, but I do know something about business affairs, and I thought I’d look it over and decide whether to operate it or sell.”

  Brionne was watching Pat, and he was quite sure he knew what was coming. At least, he could guess what Pat was thinking. The West was full of mines; some of them were very rich, but most of them paid off in nothing but dreams and hard work. Everyone you talked to had a mine in mining country, and every one of them worth money…lots of money, or so they believed.

  This girl had come west filled with hope, hope it would be cruel to destroy. “Mining is a man’s business,” he said quietly, “and the way business is done out here is not as it is in the East. Sometimes holding a claim is more difficult than finding one.”

  She smiled. “I expected you to say that, but Uncle Rody told me all about the mine—how many men he employed, and how many mules there were.”

  “Did he say where this mine was?” Pat asked.

  She looked from one man to the other, suddenly distrustful—whether of their honesty or their belief was hard to guess. “I know where it is,” she said. “He said it was near Salina.”

  Pat straightened up and put a hand to his back. “Miss,” he said gently, “I doubt if there’s more’n two houses in Salina…never been there m’self. There’s no mine workin’ down thataway that’s more than a one-man hole-in-the-ground. I surely hate to tell you this, but I knew Rody Brennan, and he never had any silver that I know of.”

  Her eyes were a little brighter. For an instant Brionne thought he saw her lip tremble. “Then where could he have gotten the money he gave us when he came east?” she asked reasonably. “When my father died he was in debt, and we had nothing. If it hadn’t been for Uncle Rody, I don’t know what we would have done.”

  “I remember when he went east,” Pat agreed reluctantly, “but I never knew he took any silver with him. Fact is, I never knew Rody Brennan to have more than a mule and a saddle.”

  “Then you don’t really know, do you?” Miranda Loften smoothed her dress. “I shall go to the mine and see for myself.”

  “There’s been trouble down there, miss, Injun trouble. And even without Indians that’s a rough country. Fact is, I think I heard that the folks who settled there at Salina had pulled out.”

  “Nevertheless, I shall go. Thank you, gentlemen. I am sure your advice was well intended.” She looked now at Pat. “And now, if I may go to your house?”

  He pointed. “Right through the door there, miss, and to your left. There’s some roses at the door…ain’t doin’ too well, but the wife likes them.”

  When she was gone, Pat said, “That fool girl will get herself into all kinds of trouble. That’s the wildest kind of country down there, and the Injuns have been cutting up something fierce. Anyway, Rody Brennan never had no mine that I know of.”

  “Where could he get that kind of money?”

  Pat shrugged. “Now, there’s a question,” he said. “I don’t know any way he could have done it honest. Rody drove spikes on the UP out of Omaha. By the time they were halfway across Nebraska he was a boss track-layer. When they drove the Golden Spike here at Promontory he was there with a bottle in his hand, and Rody was a fair-to-middlin’ drinker when he set his mind to it.

  “Rody drove stage to Salt Lake for a while, then he went off prospectin’ into the hills, but he always came back to Promontory and Corinne. They’ve got a gun-shootin’ marshal at Corinne. Daniel Ryan’s his name, and he was an officer in the army durin’ the late war. Rody was his friend.

  “Come to think of it,” Pat went on, “Ryan’s the man the lady should talk to. He knew a sight more about Rody Brennan than the rest of us. But I never saw Rody with no money, not more’n he could be rid of in a day or two of drinking or gambling.”

  Brionne took out a cigar and lighted it. From where he stood, he could see Mat standing beside their supplies in front of the store. Actually, he had been there only a few minutes, and Brionne had been watching to be sure he was all right.

  It was a busy street. Men crowded by, men of every stamp and kind: Scandinavian or German farmers looking for a place to locate, teamsters from the freight wagons, cowboys, railroad men, and drifters. A stage was loading to carry passengers south. The railroad had not yet put the stage out of business, although the tracks ran parallel to the road in places…but to the south there were no tracks as yet.

  Brionne walked up the street to where Mat was waiting and picked up the heavy sacks. He placed the first one easily on his shoulder and took the other by the top. With Mat beside him, he walked back to the livery stable.

  Pat
spoke to them as they came up. “Come over to the house,” he said. “You can eat with us.”

  Brionne hesitated, then agreed. Mat seemed pleased, for some reason. Did he fear his father’s cooking that much? Or was it because he was tired?

  “All right, Pat. We’ll come.” He paused. “By the way, what became of Dutton Mowry?”

  “Him? He drifted off somewhere.” Pat’s manner was vague.

  “Known him long?”

  “A while. He comes and he goes, like all of these drifters.”

  Which told him exactly nothing, Brionne decided. Nor, judging by Pat’s attitude, was he going to learn anything more from him.

  Where had Mowry been when that shot was fired at him?

  Chapter 5

  *

  IT WAS CHARACTERISTIC of James Brionne that he made his decision instantly, saying nothing of it to anyone.

  Miranda Loften was there, with Pat’s small family and two members of the train crew who boarded with them when in Promontory. One of the trainmen casually mentioned that they were going east with a lot of empties.

  When supper was over, Brionne followed the trainman to the door to get a breath of air, and offered him a cigar.

  “Those empty cars you mentioned…”

  “Yeah?”

  “How much would it cost to carry my son, myself, and four horses to Corinne, or some point east of there? And say nothing to anyone?”

  “If you’re a friend of Pat’s it will cost you nothing.”

  “One thing…I want to load up in the dark.” He could see doubt in the man’s eyes, and he explained. “Somebody took a shot at me in Cheyenne. I don’t know why, but I think they’ve followed me here. I do not want trouble, with my boy along.”

  The details completed, they went inside again. Just inside the door Brionne said, “You must have known Rody Brennan—did he have any money?”

  “Rody?” The brakeman chuckled. “Any time Rody had any money the bartenders got it…or his friends. That mick was the greatest guy you ever saw. He’d do anything for a friend. Why, he staked ol’ Ed Shaw. Staked him time an’ again. Every time Rody had a pay day Ed was there to get his part of it.”

  An hour later James Brionne and Mat were aboard the train for Corinne, and before daylight they left it just a few miles east of town. After two hours’ sleep and a quick meal they headed south. It was a rough beginning for Mat, but Brionne wanted distance between himself and whoever had shot at him.

  He had no theories beyond the obvious. It might be mistaken identity, or it might be somebody who remembered him from the war. There were a good many unreconstructed Confederates around. In any case, he was riding into country where he would not be likely to see them again, or to be seen by them.

  For several days he and Mat rode and camped, loafing along the trails, stopping to fish in likely streams, moving as their thoughts willed. The days drifted easily into one another; the nights were cool, the air clear and sharp. Brionne hunted a little; he held to no fixed trail. Mat’s cheeks turned from pink to tan, then to darker brown, with the sun and wind doing their work.

  They saw no human beings, for they followed no traveled route. They did see antelope, deer, and beaver. Once they saw a bear. Twice, during the nights, mountain lions prowled. Each time Brionne frightened them away by moving about, but he kept the horses close in.

  “We haven’t seen any Indians,” Mat said one evening as they sat by their campfire.

  “They’ve seen us though, Mat. They’ve been watching us, and they’re curious. Soon they will come down to talk, I think.”

  “Is this their land?”

  “That’s a good question, Mat. They were here first. At least, they were here before the white man came. But the Indian rarely claimed any fixed ground. Usually a wide area might be known as the hunting grounds of a certain tribe, but other tribes sometimes drove them away, and no boundary was recognized that could not be held by strength.

  “They fought often among themselves over hunting grounds or areas where food plants grew. Sometimes they fought simply because they wanted to fight; often they fought for scalps. That’s one of the troubles now. The older, wiser Indians have learned they cannot fight the white man, and they wish to live in peace; but the young braves need scalps to impress the Indian girls, so sometimes they go raiding and get the whole tribe into trouble.”

  The firelight flickered against the rocks, making dancing shadows. Brionne added a few sticks to the small blaze and listened into the darkness. They would be coming soon, if he knew Indians.

  And suddenly they showed, just beyond the edge of the firelight. There were three of them. Brionne was sitting with his back against a rock, his rifle across his knees.

  “There is food,” he said quietly, almost as though speaking to Mat.

  The Indians stayed very still, watching him. Then one of them came nearer, and the other two followed. “You ride far alone,” one said. He was a tall Indian with a long face, scarred by an old wound.

  “I am not alone. I have my rifle.” He smiled then, and added, “I ride with my son. He is new to your land. I would see him become a great warrior, like yourself.”

  “He is young.”

  “But not too young to know the way of the wolf and the beaver.”

  Brionne answered their questions. They had been curious about him and his odd, wandering way toward the south. These were Utes, and members of their tribe had been raiding to the south, where he was going. Without seeming to make a point of it, he kept his rifle trained on one of them, shifting a knee from time to time.

  They took food from the pot, and they drank coffee. They had eaten not long since, but an Indian would always eat again on the simple theory that it is best to eat when chance offers, for a man never knows when he will have food again.

  “We go to stay in the land of standing rocks,” Brionne said. “We will stay a moon, perhaps two. If we are among friends, it might be longer.”

  The Utes ate in silence for a time, then the long-faced warrior suddenly asked, “You are a pony soldier?”

  “I was a chief among them, but there was no time for my son. He was growing up without me.”

  The Ute said something to the others, who looked at Brionne.

  “You are right,” Brionne said; “you did get away from me, but I was a young warrior then.”

  Surprised that he knew their language, they stared at him. He shrugged, “That was long ago. Now I come to your land as a friend.”

  “How do we know this?”

  “Try me and see…as either friend or enemy.”

  “You have other enemies?” The scarred-faced warrior was prodding him, not with real animosity, but simply to see how he would react.

  “Most of my enemies are dead, but there are some white men who are enemies to me.”

  The Ute chewed on a bone, then threw it aside. “I think you are friend,” he said. “You speak well.”

  The Indian got to his feet, and Brionne stood up with him. Coolly, holding the rifle in his left hand, Brionne extended his right.

  For an instant the Ute studied him; then he clasped his hand in a quick, sharp shake. The next moment they were gone like shadows, and Brionne moved quickly out of the firelight.

  “Come, Mat,” he said, “we will move camp.”

  “Tonight?”

  “It is better.” He threw a blanket over the buckskin. “Mat, I took a chance then, extending my hand to him. He thought of holding it while the others shot me. He thought of it, but he changed his mind.”

  “Why did he?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but you see I was holding his right hand, too, and I shoot very well with my left.”

  “You told them you wanted me to be a great warrior,” Mat said.

  Brionne looked at his son. “I want you to be whatever it takes to make you happy,” he said; “and whatever you do, I want you to do it the best way you can, and then try to do it a little better still.

  “I told him I w
as teaching you to be a warrior because it was something he would understand, and because it would immediately appeal to him. I do want you to be warrior enough to fight, if necessary, for what you believe, and for what is right.”

  As he spoke he was packing, staying well outside the circle of firelight as he did so. “We will move now, Mat. They might come back.”

  “You do not trust them?”

  “Let’s just say that I don’t want them to be tempted,” Brionne said.

  Leaving the fire burning low, with a ring of earth banked about it to hold it in place, they walked their horses and went like ghosts from their camp. Two miles farther on, they made a dry camp, without a fire.

  Brionne was restless. He was thinking of Anne tonight, as he had thought of her many times of late, wondering what she would have thought of his bringing Mat to this wild land. She had approved most of the things he did, and they had always been able to talk out the small points of disagreement. But he was sure he had done the right thing in coming to this country. Mat needed a new viewpoint, new surroundings, and so did he.

  Then why was he uneasy?

  The question came to him suddenly, sharply thrust into his conscious mind, demanding an answer. For he was uneasy…he was worried.

  It was not the Indians. He had met them, and they were a possible danger. Others he might meet were a probable risk, too, but they were an understandable risk that one accepted when coming into this country. No…there was something else.

  The mysterious shot in Cheyenne…Who could have fired it? And why?

  Brionne was a coolly logical man up to a point, and he examined the facts now.

  He was on no mission for the government. He was involved in no business deal. He had no axes to grind of any kind whatsoever.

  He had no enemies he could think of, other than the Allards, who were somewhere back east. There might be some crack-brain who still wanted to fight the war, but that was unlikely.

  Was it a case of mistaken identity? Possible, but doubtful.

  He had assumed the shot had been fired by one of the men who rode in the baggage car, the men who were friends of the conductor, or at least were associated in some way with him. The man he found in the saloon was one of them, but he might not have been waiting for Brionne.